


In the Mane of Love

by megs_bee



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, M/M, Magic Gone Wrong, Not Canon Compliant, Secret Identity, Shapeshifter, Shrunkyclunks, engineer bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megs_bee/pseuds/megs_bee
Summary: There is a lion in the backyard.  This is not, Bucky thinks to himself, the usual state of affairs.  “It is,” Bucky says to the lion, “Too early.  For this shit.”  He steps back through the door and closes it.  Pours his coffee back into the pot on the warmer.  And goes back to bed.-----------------------------Steve Rogers, Captain America, has a secret: the changes brought on by the serum weren’t the first time Steve experienced every part of his body shifting into something new.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 17
Kudos: 382
Collections: Stucky Reverse Bang 2020





	In the Mane of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Stuckybangs Reverse Bang 2020! Art from the awesome rumioki (link to art arriving shortly!) was the inspiration for this fic and I had a lot of fun writing this one! 
> 
> Thanks to the Bang mods for organizing a great event <3

There is a lion in the backyard.

This is not, Bucky thinks to himself, the usual state of affairs.

He stands frozen on the back deck, just outside the door, coffee mug paused halfway to his mouth. He sniffs at his coffee suspiciously, but it just smells like coffee and not at all like something that would make him hallucinate a very,  _ very _ large animal lurking among the bushes at the far end of the property.

Now it’s true that Bucky has been working too hard; that’s why he’s out here in the first place. Stark Industries is a demanding employer, but Bucky’s boss is also big on making sure his employees are treated well. And, it turns out, when you’ve--somewhat accidentally--become friends with said boss, he ships you off to one of his properties upstate for two weeks of admittedly well-earned rest and relaxation.

The only reason Bucky is even awake at this ungodly early hour is because birds in the country are fucking  _ loud _ with no regard for exhausted engineers who just wanted to sleep off the stress brought on by six months of eighteen-hour days bringing a project to completion.

The animal slips through a patch of sunlight, and yep, that’s definitely a lion. In the bushes. In upstate New York. The lion pauses, nose in the air, and turns to look at Bucky. Bucky squints back, barely awake. 

“It is,” Bucky says to the lion, “Too early. For this shit.”

He steps back through the door and closes it. Pours his coffee back into the pot on the warmer. And goes back to bed.

***

“Alright, which one of you assholes is responsible for the lion?” Bucky demands as soon as he strides into the lab on his first day back to work. “Credit where it’s due, that was pretty good and I’m impressed with the realism, but I was supposed to be on a stress-free vacation, not being given a heart attack before I could even drink my coffee.” He drops his messenger bag on his desk.

Three pairs of eyes swung away from screens and worktables to stare at Bucky. He doesn’t buy the confused looks he’s getting at all. “Stark, I’m looking at you, because that’s just your style. How’d you do it, holograms? A robot? These two bozos in a lion suit?” He points at the rest of his lab team. “Do you have an _ actual lion? _ ”

Silence meets his question, the four of them in a still tableau for a solid minute. Then Stark’s composure cracks and he starts to grin.

“Bucky-bear, my darling minion.” Stark spread his arms wide. “While I’m glad you’re back, and I’m truly, deeply glad to see you, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Bucky squints distrustfully. “You put a lion in the yard at the house. Or a robot or a hologram of a lion, whatever. Nearly the whole two weeks I saw that thing more than once lurking around the edges of the yard. Funny but not funny, Stark. If I hadn’t been so burnt out already I might’ve really had a freaked out moment.” 

Tony stared, then started laughing and waving his hands at Bucky. “Just. Just let me be clear, because I really, really want to be clear on this. You think that I, what. Rigged up a holographic projector to show a giant cat walking around. Or that I have an actual, real-live lion poorly hidden on my property upstate. Simply to fuck with you.”

Bucky points accusingly at Tony and opens his mouth to say...something. Except now that he’s hearing someone else say it out loud, neither of those options sounds anything except slightly crazy. His lips twist uselessly and his finger slowly droops. “Uh…”

“Oh, I am loving this,” Tony crowed, coming forward to toss one arm over Bucky’s shoulders and steer him toward his desk. “This is the highlight of my week, boo, so I will answer you honestly. No, I do not have a real lion or a robot lion or a holographic lion at my cottage. I don’t know what you saw, but I swear on the threat of Pepper’s wrath that it wasn’t me.”

Goddammit, Bucky mentally sighed. Tony was being serious, albeit ridiculous. “Ugh… Then I must have been hallucinating, which is...not ideal, I’ll be honest with you, Tony.” He scrubs both hands roughly over his face. “I knew I was wrecked after finishing that last project, but seeing imaginary felines is probably a bad sign.”

When he lowers his hands, however, he sees a calculating expression on Tony’s face that Bucky doesn’t trust  _ at all _ . “You’ve got that look, Tony.”

“It’s the look of a man who can set your mind at ease,” Tony said, flippant and a bit distracted as he tosses himself into a chair and wheels over to one of the holo-consoles. “Also, I’m helping you out so you can’t be pissed at me,” he adds as the holoscreen lights up with what looks like a series of video feeds.

Showing a very familiar patio and porch and gardens… 

“You sent me on vacation to a house full of cameras.” Bucky’s voice is flat, stuck somewhere between really creeped out and not surprised at all.

“No being mad!” Tony exclaims, fingers flying over the controls to scroll through the videos. “Look, the place is empty most of the time. Of course I’ve got security.” 

And yeah, Bucky can’t really argue with that, except he catches sight of a series of internal views-- 

“Plus JARVIS made sure all the inside cameras were turned off while you were there,” Tony tossed out before Bucky could muster up another accusation. “Unless you were jerking it out on the lawn, you’re safe from my prying eyes.”

“ _ Oh my god, Tony. _ ” Bucky doesn’t even know where to start with that one, so he just ignores it.

“Aha, here’s the last two week’s feed,” Tony says, expanding the video large enough that they could see the details of the yard. 

The camera view shows most of the yard and a stretch of the back deck, and...yeah, there’s tiny Video-Bucky stepping outside the door and taking a look around the yard right after he first arrived. He’s only on the screen for a couple minutes before going back inside, and Bucky remembers that he’d basically lay down and passed out from exhaustion about half an hour later.

“Speed it up, JARVIS,” Tony says, lounging back in his chair. “Stop if you see something interesting.”

“ _ Certainly, Sir _ ,” JARVIS’ voice says from the speaker. Bucky can’t help but smile every time he hears that posh, British-sounding artificial voice, because leave it to Stark to build himself a digital butler.

The video feed zips forward, showing nothing except the occasional flash of a bird across the yard until the sunlight turns golden then dims into night. The timestamp runs through most of the night before the video pauses just after six in the morning and JARVIS’ voice says, “Sirs, if you will focus on the top right corner of the screen.”

Bucky tenses and leans forward, eyes glued to the video. He doesn’t see anything but the trees and bushes that surrounded the property, shadowy and green in the early morning light. 

The video starts playing again at normal speed and for the first few minutes there’s nothing, just the shadows shifting and brightening, leaves and branches swaying slightly in the breeze. Bucky’s just thinking that he should be seeing his tiny video-self again soon when something definitely not green and much,  _ much _ larger than a bird slides between two trees, visible for a moment and then gone again. 

“Well now, that’s interesting,” Tony says. He sits up and leans toward the screen; Bucky realizes he’s leaning forward, too. As they watch, they glimpse the golden yellow  _ something _ drift in and out of the edges of the video, never quite coming out of the treeline. 

Until suddenly an enormous lion slides into the yard--because yes, indeed, the lion was apparently real and not a figment of Bucky’s poor overworked brain. Huge shaggy-maned golden head raised, the lion appeared to be looking around and scenting the air casually, then suddenly turned to stare toward the deck just as video-Bucky stepped out of the house and into view.

“JARVIS, pause video,” Tony grins, spinning his desk chair around to face Bucky. “Congratulations, Bucky-bear. It appears you saw an actual real-live lion last week. No overwork-induced hallucinations for you!”

Bucky feels a little weak and sort of slumps down in his chair. Relief, yeah he feels a lot of that, but also a bit of delayed fear that he was barely ten yards away from a giant predator. “God damn, that was a real fucking lion.” Sure the lion hadn’t seemed all that...vicious. Or interested in doing more than stare at Bucky that first time, and after that Bucky had stayed in the house.

He can’t quite tear his gaze away from the golden beast on the screen. Video-Bucky had stepped back into the house, and he’d gone back to sleep and then avoided looking out the windows for the rest of the day. Now he saw that the lion lingered, wandering around the yard sniffing the air and the ground, and even at one point approached the deck at the spot where Bucky had briefly stood. Fuck, what would Bucky have done if the lion was more determined to come after him, or had tried to get into the house?

He stiffens at his next thought. “Shit shit shit, that was a real lion wandering around, Tony! I saw it and didn’t do anything because I didn’t think it was real! Oh fuck, I hope it didn’t eat someone.”

“What the hell do you think you could’ve done against a lion?” Tony snarks back, but he also sits forward and starts typing rapidly on another screen. Bucky sees what he recognizes as local news stations and newspapers flashing past. 

“I know I can’t take on a lion and win!” Bucky exclaims. “I could’ve, I don’t know, called animal control or something!”

Tony leans back from the keyboard. “Well I’m not seeing any news reports of lions on the loose  _ or _ lions eating people, so just chill.”

“ _ Sir, I’ve taken the liberty of sending a notification to the local authorities, _ ” JARVIS says. 

“Better late than never, I guess,” Bucky groans and scrubs his hands over his face. When he lowers his hands he studies the lion on the video again as JARVIS plays the security footage from different days. Bucky had glimpsed the animal multiple times around the edges of the property that first week, but had continued to dismiss it as his overtired imagination. Even taking that belief into account, he’d never felt particularly threatened. It had just felt like the animal was curious. 

He was never sure if it was real or a trick of the light, but he thought the lion’s eyes looked blue.

Then the second week he didn’t see the lion at all, which Bucky had taken to be more evidence that he’d been hallucinating due to exhaustion and burnout. That a week of mostly sleeping had been enough to set things right. Now, of course, he wonders if the lion was still around but just not showing himself.

And if he’s honest with himself, even though he believed it was a hallucination or a prank, by that second week Bucky had gotten in the habit of looking for the lion out the window--and secretly been a little disappointed every time he failed to see it slinking around the edges of the property, big and sleek and golden brown. .

***

For two weeks Bucky finds his thoughts straying to that lion, picturing that golden mane and muscled feline grace. Those strangely blue-coloured eyes. JARVIS reports that the local authorities never found any sign of a lion; no tracks, no attacks, no other reports of a sighting.

It would have been dangerous as all hell, but Bucky wishes he’d been able to get closer--maybe even close enough to touch.

Then one day aliens fall out of a hole in the sky over Manhattan and wipe all thoughts of lions from Bucky’s mind.

***

The lab is a disaster. Equipment tumbled everywhere, some of it clearly broken beyond repair. The whole room--hell, the whole floor--smells like ozone and melted plastic. Bucky picks his way carefully through the doorway, glad he thought to wear his safety boots today instead of his usual sneakers as he kicks broken glass from the shattered door out of his path. 

He comes to a stop a few feet into the room, just staring at the destruction. It’s overwhelming. This entire week is overwhelming. Aliens and gods and whatever the fuck else. The shape of the world changed overnight, and Bucky has no idea what to do now.

It’s not even like he was in the thick of things, not really, not in the sense that he had to literally fight an alien. Not like Stark--Iron Man--and those others, whoever they were. But Bucky had been working when the building evacuation siren went off, immediately followed by JARVIS relaying the evac procedure over the speakers. He’d run to the emergency stairs along with the rest of the floor, and the next four hours had been filled with terrified people, Stark employees and civilians who had run inside the building, huddled in the Tower’s underground parking garage waiting for the sounds of explosions and other deafening, unidentifiable sounds to stop.

Bucky pushes away those memories and takes a deep breath. Lets it out slow, and presses his hand against his eyes for a minute. There’s no real reason for Bucky to be here, back in the Tower, except that coming to the lab to check on things seemed marginally better than sitting alone in his apartment freaking the fuck out. Bucky’s a little surprised that he got past Stark’s security, but they swiped his ID and let him in, so he must have been on the Tony’s Tech Team Approved List or something.

So now he’s in his lab, slowly trying to pick through the mess and feeling generally overwhelmed and still kind of dazed from aliens and gods and destruction. The last week feels like it lasted a year. “I need another vacation,” he mutters. But he didn’t know what else to do with himself except come to the lab, so that’s what he did. 

Except now that he’s here, seeing the state of things, he’s not sure what he can accomplish beyond trying to clean up. No doubt Stark has people to do that, technically, but this was one of the high-security labs so who knows when someone with clearance will get around to dealing with it. Bucky might as well do what he can to start trying to sort things out.

He finds his work table on its side and heaves it upright with a grunt. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he starts his music app playing and sets it on the corner of the table. The lab is such a mess it’s hard to know where to start, so he just picks the closest pile and starts pulling things out. After a few minutes he finds a rhythm untangling cords and wires, setting aside tools as he finds them, and examining things for damage, and it’s enough to distract his thoughts and settle his anxiety. 

After a couple hours, he’s got half the lab sorted into piles of destroyed equipment, broken-but-fixable, and the stuff that seems to be mostly undamaged, though he won’t know for sure until he’s able to hook things back up and test everything. He hasn’t seen anyone except the security team on patrol, and once they scanned his ID again they left him alone to work.

He hasn’t seen Stark yet, and hasn’t heard anything about how he’s doing. Not since seeing the news footage of Iron Man flying around blasting aliens and then steering a missile straight into the portal thing. It had looked...well, not great at the end there, but Bucky figures that if Stark was really bad off--or god forbid, dead--it would be all over the news. So no news is good news, hopefully. 

Hell, if anyone deserves a vacation right now, it’s probably Tony. 

And really, why would anyone let Bucky know Stark’s condition? It’s not like Bucky and Tony are some kind of super best friends or anything. But they have been working together for over a year now on a half-dozen projects, so Bucky figures it’s understandable he’s worried about his boss and friend. 

He’s also pretty sure there’s no way he’ll get any updates from anyone without suddenly acquiring a sky-high security clearance.

Except Bucky has a pretty fucking high security clearance, at least as far as Stark Industries is concerned, so maybe….

“Uh, JARVIS?” Bucky looks toward the corner camera. He’s not sure the AI would even answer; Bucky’s in the system because he works with JARVIS in a limited capacity during a lot of Tony’s projects, but rarely without Tony being in the room at the least, even if they were working on different things.

He says JARVIS’ name again, a bit louder, but doesn’t get a response. Given the state of the room, he wonders if JARVIS’ interface in the lab is damaged somehow. He scans the piles of salvaged equipment. Maybe if he can get one of the consoles working…

The next hour passes quickly while Bucky does his best to rebuild the holotable that looks the least damaged. Hopefully if he can get it working, he’ll be able to get through to JARVIS and ask for an update on Tony. He’s still not sure JARVIS will give him anything new aside from what’s already been reported on the news, but it’s worth a shot, and the task gives him something to focus on.

Bucky’s in an awkward crouch half underneath the table, poking at the wires inside the open panel. He’s pretty sure that he’s on the right track, just needs to reconnect the power to the master display and then turn on the remote network receiver. He only has to bend this prong back into place and--

Electricity arcs in front of his face as something shorts out with a bright burst of sparks. “Ow, fuck!” He drops the connector and the screwdriver as the heat jolts through his hand, stinging beneath the skin. He swears again as he presses against the sore spot, checking to make sure he didn’t get burnt. 

“Uh, hey? You okay in there?” A voice calls across the lab from the direction of the doorway, beautiful and deep. The kind of voice you want to wrap yourself up in like a blanket.

Unfortunately for Bucky, the voice is also entirely unexpected and scares the living hell out of him. He jolts hard from surprise in a sort of full-body spasm, which also involves cracking his head against the underside of the table. Hard. “Fucking shit!”

“Oh damn, sorry!” Beautiful Voice exclaims, accompanying the sound of footsteps crossing the lab towards Bucky. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s fine! I’m fine,” Bucky groans. He digs a hand through his hair to check his probably-bruised head, crawling out from beneath the holotable. “This has just been one hell of a week, and apparently learning aliens exist about five minutes before seeing them put a serious hurt on my city has made me  _ just _ a little tense.”

“Believe me, I understand how that kind of thing can get to a guy.” A pair of beat up boots came around the edge of the holotable and stopped in front of where Bucky is still on the floor working his way out from underneath.

Bucky finally manages to stand, and finds himself in front of an unfamiliar -- yet also vaguely familiar? -- blond man wearing boring khakis and a plaid shirt beneath a very nice leather motorcycle jacket. Bucky eyes him up and down--subtly, because Bucky has class. The guy’s attractive, no doubt about it. 

But as soon as the guy gets a good look at Bucky, suddenly he has a strange expression on his face. Bucky wipes at his own cheeks and chin in case he’s got dirt or grease smudges, but his hand comes away clean. 

“If you’re looking for Tony, he’s not in the lab today,” Bucky says. He waves his hand around the room. “As you can see, the lab is slightly out of commission at the moment.”

“Uh, no. No, I’m not looking for Tony,” the guy says, sounding a lot more awkward than he had a few minutes ago. “I was just...passing in the hall when I heard you swearing. Wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

When Bucky looks over, he sees the guy’s gone pink across his cheekbones and is staring at Bucky a bit wide-eyed, as though he’s the one who just got surprised under a desk. The moment stretches out, slightly awkward, where he just keeps looking at Bucky, and it’s...well, it’s kind of weird even in spite of how good looking the guy is.  _ Pretty blue eyes, though, even if he’s a weirdo. _

Eventually Bucky figures the guy stalled out, or at least has nothing else he wants to say. “Well, thanks. I’m fine, though. Just gave myself a shock trying to fix this holotable. It’s not the first time and I doubt it will be the last.”

The guy takes a deep breath through his nose, then another, but Bucky doesn’t think it’s doing anything to calm the guy down. If anything, those broad shoulders get even tighter and his blush gets brighter. “Okay, um. Great. That’s good. That you’re okay, I mean! Not that you electrocuted yourself...again…” He trails off, looks like he’s about to say something else, but then just sort of turns half away from Bucky. But he doesn’t leave, either. Just sort of hovers uncertainly.

And oh, he’s  _ shy _ , Bucky realizes. He silently chastises himself for making assumptions; just because the guy is gorgeous and built doesn’t mean he can’t also be introverted or shy with strangers. No doubt whatever concern he had from hearing Bucky cursing was enough to carry him forward, but now they’d reached small talk.

_ Fucking adorable _ , Bucky thought to himself, trying not to let his amusement show. 

“No worries, I knew what you meant,” Bucky smiles. “And I promise I’m fine. My name’s Bucky. This is...well, this was my lab. I work with Tony.” He holds out his hand. 

“Oh! Steve, I’m Steve.” He hesitates for a second before gently shaking Bucky’s hand. “Sorry, I forgot my manners. I also, uh...work with Tony.” He takes another deep breath, still looking a little wild-eyed. 

Bucky smiles a little wider when Steve lingers over the handshake, still blushing. “So if you’re not looking for Tony, and we’ve established that I’m fine, is there anything I  _ can  _ help you with?” And if he puts a little bit of a flirty inflection in that last bit, well, it’s worth a shot.

“I don’t think so?” Steve replies, sounding a bit confused, like he’s not sure why Bucky’s asking. “I was just on my way…” He trailed off, looking a bit sheepish. “I’m not actually sure if I can tell you?”

Bucky finally caves in to soft laughter. This guy, this Steve, is just so earnest it’s honestly almost too charming. “It’s fine, I understand security clearances, though if you’re walking around this floor unescorted we’re probably at least on par. But I guess in that case, I better let you get back to whatever you were doing.”

“I could help?” Steve gestures vaguely to the mess in the lab, and looks like he’s about to say something else when a loud tune erupts from the pocket of his jeans. Steve flinches in surprise, and after a few seconds of confusion he fumbles his phone out of his pocket and starts poking at it with his finger. The multiple finger-pokes and Steve’s frustrated expression suggest he’s not great with using it, and Bucky thinks it makes him even cuter.

Steve finally figures out how to answer the call, giving Bucky an apologetic look as he lifts the phone to his ear and turns slightly aside. “Hello? Yes, it’s fine, I’m on my way. No, not lost.” Steve’s eyes cut over to Bucky. “Just a detour. I’ll be there in five.”

Lowering the phone, Steve pokes at it again until he must be satisfied the call ended. “Sorry. Looks like I can’t stay and help, after all.”

Bucky’s disappointed, no point in lying to himself, because he would’ve liked the chance to get to know Steve and maybe flirt a bit more. He thinks maybe under the shyness Steve might be interested, but five minutes in a busted-up lab probably isn’t long enough for the guy to get comfortable enough to flirt back.

Still, Steve said he works with Tony. Hopefully, that means this won’t be the last time Bucky has a chance to talk to him. “No worries, Steve. I don’t have much of a plan here, so even with another pair of hands I doubt I’d put you to good use.” Sue him if it sounds suggestive, Bucky thinks, but just in case this is the only chance he gets, he wants to make an impression.

Steve blushes again, the adorable awkwardness coming back. “I’m… It was nice to meet you, Bucky. Good luck with...uh, the lab. I have to go...yeah…” He turns quickly towards the door, but shoots Bucky one final wide-eyed glance over his shoulder before disappearing into the hall.

Bucky lets out a breath and leans against the edge of the table, smiling to himself. With any luck, the next time he meets Steve, he’ll be able to determine whether the guy might be open to an invite for coffee.

In the meantime, Bucky still has a lab to clean up. 

***

_ His name is Bucky. _

Steve makes it down the hall and around the corner, well out of sight of the lab, before ducking into an empty room. Shutting the door, he leans back until his shoulders thump against the metal. He still feels the heat of his blush across his cheekbones.

Steve’s been awake in the new century for less than three months and back in New York for less than one, and he’s already seen and done things he could never have imagined back in the forties; smartphones, the internet, and aliens barely topped the list.

Yet somehow, here in Stark Tower, the last thing Steve expects is to run into the man he’d seen standing on the porch of a fancy cottage three weeks ago.

Steve spent nearly a month in the wilds--such as they are--of upstate New York, after those first overwhelming weeks of what his SHIELD therapist called  _ reintegration _ . It was so much information at once; too much, really. Too many people asking about the Depression or the War, or to tell him in detail everything he  _ absolutely had to watch or listen to or read about _ . 

But Steve didn’t want to talk to strangers about growing up dirt poor or about the years at the Front. He has no frame of reference for all the suggestions of movies and television shows and music that all seem to depend on his having seen something  _ else _ first if he’s to get the full enjoyment out of it. He tried to avoid the people when he could, to avoid the questions when he couldn’t. Tried to avoid talking about anything, really.

And that’s not to mention the secrets Steve can’t afford to share with these strangers that he doesn’t know and can’t trust.

When his therapist suggested Steve spend some time away from it all at a SHIELD safehouse, he leapt at the chance.

The cabin they sent him to was small but not cramped, with a bedroom, full bath, and an open kitchen and living area. Heavy wood furniture, thick cushions, log walls.

And privacy.

He missed the sounds of the city, especially that first week--too much quiet tends to make him start listening for enemies--but being left alone with some books, a tablet and computer, and the internet had gone a long way toward Steve feeling less like he was going to crawl out of his own skin from stress.

It wasn’t just because he finally had the chance to learn about the new century at his own pace, without an avalanche of well-meaning recommendations from everyone he spoke to. Having privacy and space meant he could also relax the other part of himself.

Or privacy of a sort, he supposes. It’s not that he doesn’t trust SHIELD, exactly. But he can’t say he entirely trusts them, either, so he wasn’t surprised to find surveillance equipment throughout the cabin. The technology might have changed, but Peggy’s lessons in spycraft served him well enough to search the place top to bottom and remove a number of cameras and audio devices. Plus his enhanced hearing can pick up the faint sound of electronics if he listens closely enough, once he knows what to listen for.

At first, Fury showed up to try and argue for keeping the surveillance in place. “I’m just going to take it all down again, Director,” was Steve’s only response. “I’m not here to be a lab rat or a prisoner.” Fury wasn’t pleased and made sure Steve knew it, but he eventually gave in to a compromise: basic health monitoring sensors in the main room, but no audio or video indoors, a couple exterior surveillance points, and the energy-field fence that circled the property. 

Steve was satisfied in the end because it gave him just enough privacy inside the house and outside.

Because Steve Rogers, Captain America, has a secret.

The changes brought on by the serum weren’t the first time Steve experienced every part of his body shifting into something new. 

Steve’s Ma always said Steve had the heart of a lion, and when he was sixteen it turned out to be true. The lion that exists inside him is the other side of himself, even though he’d only ever managed the shift a handful of times due to his poor health before the serum. According to his Ma, having the ability to change forms has always run in Steve’s family, though she didn’t know when it started or how. 

Why Steve’s other form is a lion--not a particularly Irish animal--was something to which his Ma could only say that whatever magic lives in them chooses the form most suited to a person’s personality.

So skinny Steve Rogers, with the heart of a lion, got a second form to match.

He also, miracle of miracles, managed to keep it secret from everyone except a few trusted friends--just Erskine, Peggy, and the Commandos--despite close quarters on the show circuit and during the War. And now none of those people are still alive except for Peggy, and no one at all knows that the occasional wartime stories about soldiers seeing a lion in the forests of Europe were in fact about Steve.

But he had learned one valuable lesson as a shapeshifter during the War: that when no one thought something was possible, they failed to guard against it.

Which is how Steve’s time at the cabin offered true freedom. 

As it turned out, while the energy fence surrounding the property might be designed to identify human intruders and sound the alarm, it wasn’t meant to be set off by wildlife. A lion could apparently come and go as he pleased.

Slipping around to a spot he couldn’t be seen by any surveillance was an easy task, and it took a matter of moments to shift into his feline form and head out into the trees. The forest afforded him the freedom he couldn’t find in the city--freedom to explore the scents and sounds of the area, to run on four paws and jump and climb. 

It was the first time since coming out of the ice that he felt like himself.

He’s careful to avoid any sign of people; not that there’s much aside from a handful of campsites and a few highways. But two weeks into his time at the cabin, when he was out on a run, he suddenly finds himself at the treeline behind a fancy-looking modern house built of glass and black stone.

He can smell the scents of several people, though only one was strong enough on the breeze to tell him that the person was still there. Still, Steve paces cautiously around the edge of the property, staying back in the trees and brush. Keeping to the early morning shadows to avoid being seen.

As Steve rounds the corner towards the back of the house, however, he catches sight and scent of the man who must live here standing out on the back patio. Steve raises his nose, sniffing the air for the scent of coffee and sleep-rumpled male. Finds himself moving closer.

The guy is gorgeous, even half-asleep; messy dark brown hair and a stubbled jaw. And he smells  _ amazing _ , even from across the open yard. Steve can’t help but move forward, trying to get a better look.

He forgets about trying not to be seen, forgets that lions aren’t usually seen wandering around upstate New York. The next moment, Steve’s stepping out from the protective tree shadows, in clear view of the back patio.

The man’s eyes find Steve instantly where he stands in the early morning sun. For an electric moment they watch each other. Steve waits for a sign he should move closer; he’s not sure what the stranger is waiting for. Except the moment is broken. The man blinks hard, muttering something too quiet for Steve to hear, turns away, and goes back into the house.

Steve waits for a while, even as he tells himself it’s foolish, but the man doesn’t reappear. Steve feels unreasonably disappointed; it’s not as though he could expect a stranger to welcome a lion with open arms. Yet somehow a part of wishes that’s what happened.

Steve finds himself returning the next day--cautiously, in case the guy called animal control or something--and walking around the edge of the yard. No animal control, which is good, but the stranger doesn’t reappear, either. Steve comes again, though, and nearly every day for a week, but doesn’t catch sight of the man again aside from the occasional glimpse of a figure moving past the window.

And Steve feels a lot like a fool, of course he does; coming back is dangerous, letting himself be seen like this is a risk. But he can’t seem to help himself, and it only serves to remind him of something else his Ma always said.

_ When you find the right person, the person meant for you… You’ll feel it, and you’ll know. _

But at the beginning of the second week, when Steve approaches the house he smells other people, and the scent of the man Steve’s hoping to see is faded. He’s gone.

So that’s that, Steve figures. He doesn’t know who the guy is, where he came from, and he’s left before Steve got a chance to really meet him. He’s disappointed, and a little pissed at himself for not trying harder. But he isn’t given any time to wallow in it; by the end of the week Fury appears to take Steve out of the cabin and back to New York, and he’s fighting aliens and trying to prevent the destruction of his home city.

It’s not as though he forgets; no, his thoughts turn toward that moment more than once. But he doesn’t have time to do anything about trying to find one stranger in millions.

Except now here Steve is, in Stark Tower, and so is the man he saw.  _ Bucky _ .

And Steve has no idea what to do about it.

Oh, he knows what he  _ wants _ to do. Instinctually, he wants to stand close enough to be surrounded by Bucky’s scent, to sit and listen to his warm voice for hours, to curl around him offering comfort and protection. 

The awkward human part of Steve, of course, knows that all of those things would be extremely rude and strange to engage in with someone he just met--or just met officially, at any rate. Steve’s definitely sure that lurking around the edges of someone’s summer property does not count as an introduction.

His phone beeps shrilly, interrupting Steve’s thoughts. He pulls the device out of his pocket and taps at the screen until it shows him a message from Natasha.  _ Thought you said you weren’t lost _ .

He doesn’t really know what to say--just about anything could tip Natasha off that Steve’s got something on his mind, and then she’ll start asking questions--so he just sends back one of the little yellow smiling face pictures because it seems to amuse her when he uses them. Shoving his phone back in his pocket, Steve straightens his shoulders and steps back out into the hall, heading to the meeting room that was his original destination before anyone comes looking for him.

He’ll think about Bucky—and what to do about him—later.

****

It’s barely been a week since what the news has been calling the “Attack on Manhattan” and the coffee shop on the ground floor at Stark Tower is already back up and operating in spite of the construction going on in the lobby. It feels...weird, Bucky thinks. What happened was so world-changing, yet so much of the city is suddenly almost back to normal -- people and traffic moving around piles of rubble, stores reopening among shattered windows. 

Bucky mentally rolls his eyes at himself. He’s unsettled, sure, but clearly not enough to keep him  _ out _ of said coffee shop. He skirts around a jumble of broken seats and tables that have been shoved into the corner and heads toward the short line of construction guys waiting outside the shop. He supposes that the construction crews working in the Tower need their caffeine too, just like anyone else.

He doesn’t see anyone except the construction crews as he makes his way across the lobby. It makes sense, since most of the Tower is still shut down. The Stark Industries business people have all been told to work remotely until the Tower is cleared, so aside from Stark himself and probably Ms. Potts, only Bucky and a handful of other high-clearance-level lab tech guys have been coming in. Even then, it’s less to work and more to clean up damage at the secure labs that really shouldn’t have random cleaning and construction crews coming through.

He’s almost reached the coffee shop when movement across the lobby catches his eye, and he sees Steve--cute, shy Steve who hadn’t reappeared since that day at the lab--in running clothes and looking deliciously sweaty. 

Steve’s breathing deep, as though he just finished a run, and Bucky sees him inhale sharply then turn to look directly at him. Steve immediately blushes, wide-eyed, but also smiles a little with an adorably awkward wave.

Well, Bucky’s willing to take that as an invitation. He veers off from the coffee shop to make his way toward Steve, instead.

“Hi, Bucky,” Steve says quietly, then falls silent like he isn’t sure what else to say. 

_ Adorable. _ Bucky’s smile deepens, and he leans just a little closer to Steve. “Hi there, Steve.”

To Bucky’s joy, Steve doesn’t move away, but takes a deep breath and looks almost dazed. “Hi…” When Bucky laughs softly, Steve seems to come back to himself with a little shake of his head. “I didn’t expect to see you. Thought everything here was still closed while the building gets fixed.”

Bucky gives a little shrug. “Me and a few others are still cleaning up the high-security labs. The ones we don’t want just anyone getting into.”

“Makes sense,” Steve nods. “So...you come here often?” he says, then must realize what he just said because he immediately winces with embarrassment and his face goes even redder. 

Bucky wants to laugh, but he takes pity on Steve and pretends like he didn’t hear the double entendre. “Yeah, I’ve been here at the lab pretty much every day. Can’t do any of my regular work yet, but lots to do fixing up the lab and getting everything working again.”

“I don’t mean to keep you from...,” Steve says, gesturing toward the coffee show before reaching up and rubbing one hand across the back of his neck. “But it’s nice to see you again.” 

“I’m glad we ran into each other, too,” Bucky replies. “You look like you’re just back from the gym, though. Not dressed for work.”

“Oh, uh… I’m staying at the Tower while I help Tony with something.” Steve nods toward the elevators. “I just got back from a run. Sorry for being a sweaty mess.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Bucky smirks, allowing himself one quick scan of Steve’s--yes, sweaty, but gorgeous--frame “I don’t mind.” This conversation is giving him hope that Steve’s genuinely interested, even though he’s shy, so Bucky figures he can let himself be a little more flirty. 

To Bucky’s delight, it must be working. Steve blushes, but he also leans ever so slightly toward Bucky, inhaling deeply. Then Steve pauses, straightens his shoulders and meets Bucky’s eyes squarely. “Can I treat you to a coffee, Bucky?”

Bucky smiles and leans a little closer. “You can  _ definitely _ treat me to a coffee, Steve.” He turns back toward the coffeeshop and they walk side by side back across the lobby. Steve looks a little shocked--as though he hadn’t really expected to get this far and now wasn’t sure what to do--but he starts to relax as they talk in line. 

Steve’s still a bit shy, and really polite, but Bucky thinks that now they’ve established they’re on the same page--flirting, and now on a coffee date--Steve seems to be getting a bit more comfortable. 

They keep it light, talking about Steve’s favourite running routes in the city, and Bucky’s progress setting his lab to rights. Steve doesn’t seem to watch much television, but he’s more than happy to listen to Bucky talk about his favourite shows and movies. Bucky mostly reads recent science fiction, but hearing Steve’s thoughts on early 20th century non-fiction is fascinating. They get their coffees--a caramel mocha for Bucky, and a dark roast with sugar for Steve--and linger in the hall outside Bucky’s lab while they drink and talk.

It’s so simple, but it’s the best date Bucky thinks he’s ever had. Steve is sweet and polite and funny, and he looks at Bucky as though he thinks Bucky is just the most amazing thing. Bucky’s not afraid to admit that it’s goddamn flattering, and he’s pretty sure he’s looking right back at Steve the same way.

By the time their coffees are long gone, they’re standing close and Bucky’s looking up through his lashes at Steve just to see that blush. “So, you gonna let me buy you dinner, Stevie?”

“Yeah, yes, Bucky. I’d really like that.” Steve smiles, clearly happy with Bucky’s invitation.

They end with the promise of a dinner date for later in the week, and Bucky gets Steve’s number this time, too. It hasn’t even been a half hour when Steve sends an adorable  _ Thanks for sharing coffee with me _ text, and it’s the start of a text conversation that lasts for several days.

By the end of the month, they’ve had half a dozen dates and countless texts, and Bucky’s falling hard and fast. Steve’s wonderful, almost too good to be true, except that he does appear to be the genuine article: a good man. 

He does get the feeling sometimes that Steve’s holding something back, but that’s fair--it’s only been a month, after all, even though in all the best ways it feels like they’ve known each other for years instead of weeks.

He’s getting ready to meet Steve for dinner--date number seven, Bucky thinks with what is probably a schmoopy grin--when his phone goes off. Picking it up off the bed, he sees Steve’s name. “Hey, Stevie, you’re early. I’ll come down in a sec--”

“Ah, Bucky, I’m so sorry. Something came up, a work emergency thing, and I can’t make it tonight.” Steve’s voice is rushed, but definitely disappointed, Bucky can hear it even over the background noise, something that sounds like an airplane engine and the sound of people yelling back and forth. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise--”

“ _ Steve, we have to go NOW! _ ” An angry female voice interrupts from the background.

“Steve?” Bucky says, because this all sounds...not great. Even though he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“I’m sorry, I should only be gone a couple days. I’ll call as soon as I get back, I swear,” Steve says, and it sounds like he’s running now. 

“I...It’s okay, Steve. Just, uh...take care of yourself?” Bucky replies. He’s not sure if that’s the best thing to say, but he’s drawing a blank. 

“I’ll talk to you soon, sweetheart,” Steve says, then the line clicks off.

Bucky slowly lowers his phone.  _ What the hell? _

It hits him that all he really knows about Steve’s work is that he said he works with Tony, but not what he does. For whatever reason, Bucky realizes he’s had it in his head that Steve was either a top Stark Industries guy, or another tech guy for one of Tony’s many projects. Although Steve’s a pretty big guy, maybe he’s part of Stark’s security team? But in that case, Bucky can’t imagine that it wouldn’t have come up when they talked about Bucky’s position at the Tower.

Letting out a sigh, Bucky gives himself one last look in the mirror, his outfit of slate-gray button down that matches his eyes and the black jeans that make his ass look fantastic. “All dressed up and nowhere to go.” And nothing to be done with his questions about Steve’s job, either, though he’s definitely going to ask as soon as Steve gets back. 

The late notice kind of sucks, though, and Bucky considers going out somewhere on his own anyway. But after a few minutes he clearly isn’t in the mood to go out without Steve, so he changes back into comfortable clothes and ends up on the couch watching tv.

A news broadcast catches his eye and he pauses there for a few minutes. Something about the Avengers--Stark’s new superhero buddies, from stuff he’s let drop when he’s down working in Bucky’s lab. It’s not something Bucky gives a lot of thought to, that he knows and works with Iron Man. Stark doesn’t say too much about it when they’re working, which makes sense because they’re busy. But a few times Stark has mentioned the other people on the team. 

They’re apparently out in Rhode Island fighting some magic-shooting guy, but the shaky news footage and flashy destruction, with the costumed superheroes running around on the screen reminds him too much of the Attack on Manhattan and he changes the channel with a guilty sigh. Stark should be fine, between the suit and the team, and the last thing Bucky needs tonight is a night of anxiety dreams and poor sleep.

He settles on a movie and does his best to keep his thoughts from straying to questions about Steve and worries about what’s going on two states away.

He’s half asleep several hours later, when his phone rings loud in the quiet of his apartment and startles Bucky awake. He flails around until he manages to get his phone off the coffee table and bring it to his face. The screen says “JARVIS” which is enough to have Bucky sitting straight up, because why the hell would JARVIS be calling Bucky’s phone in the middle of the night?

He answers quickly. “JARVIS? What’s wrong?”

“ _ I’m sorry to wake you, Mister Barnes. I am afraid I must request that you come to the Tower. There’s been an incident involving Steven Rogers, he is largely all right but had requested you be notified in case of an emergency or injury. _ ” JARVIS’ artificially modulated voice offered no clues to the severity of the situation.

“Wait, what? What happened to Steve?” Bucky exclaims, already on his way to the bedroom to pull on jeans and grab his wallet. 

“I am unfortunately not at liberty to explain until you are in the Tower as a security precaution. A car is waiting downstairs for you, and will bring you to the correct location in the Tower once you arrive.”

“Okay. Okay, thanks JARVIS. I’m heading out right now,” Bucky says as he hangs up and shoves his phone into his pocket and pulls on his shoes. He barely remembers to grab a jacket and lock the door behind him before running downstairs.

A black car is idling at the curb and Bucky sees Happy, Tony’s driver and security guy in the driver’s seat. “Hop in, Barnes. I’ll have you back to the Tower in no time.”

“Thanks,” Bucky replies as he slides into the back seat. The car pulls away from the curb and Bucky stares out the window as the city flashes by on the way into Manhattan, hoping that Steve is okay.

*****

Steve wakes disoriented and dizzy.  _ When did I fall asleep? _ He stays still, assessing his body and his surroundings. His muscles ache a bit, and he recognizes the sounds and smells of the medical lab at the Tower. Somewhat reassuring, though not being sure why he’s here is certainly a concern.

The last thing he remembers is fighting with the rest of the Avengers against some bozo claiming he had magic powers or something. Though for a guy who supposedly had magic, he sure liked using guns. A  _ lot _ .

_ Did I get shot? _ Steve mentally checks how his body feels again. It would explain being in medical and being unconscious, though Steve wouldn’t have thought the guy’s gun would be enough to knock him out. Regardless, he’s not hurting much beyond the usual post-fight sore muscles, so the serum seems to have taken care of whatever happened.

When Steve goes to sit up, however, he realizes that he’s in his lion form, and not his human one.  _ Shit. _

He twists and rolls off the table, landing on all four paws and immediately looks around the room. No one else is in here at the moment, which he already knew because he didn’t smell anyone nearby. Turning to the interior wall, however, he sees the rest of the Avengers lined up outside the observation window. Natasha looks calmly inscrutable as usual, but the rest of the team wear expressions ranging from confusion to shocked surprise.

Shit. Shit, he’s gotta explain. Steve tries to shift back to human--

Nothing happens. He can’t shift. He tries again, concentrating on the feel of the change and the shape of his human body. He can feel the change humming beneath the surface, but it’s as though he can’t quite reach it to make the transformation. And that’s far more alarming than the fact that he apparently changed involuntarily--that now he can’t seem to change back.

None of this has ever happened before—not shifting involuntarily and not getting stuck in his lion form—and he doesn’t know how to fix this.

For a moment Steve is just  _ enraged _ . At all the years he kept this secret, at the fact that he didn’t get to decide when he trusted his team enough to tell them what he was. The anger boils up and he just  _ yells _ . Of course what comes out of his throat isn’t a yell, but a thunderous roar--and he’s an oversized, serum-enhanced lion so the sound practically rattles the windows.

When he sees the caution and unease on the faces of his teammates, though, he feels guilty for losing control. He’s not going to hurt them, even if he’s angry, but how would they know. Hell, they might not even be sure it’s Steve in here and not a real lion. He tries to shift again, but still nothing happens.

Steve hangs his head a moment, huffing out a grumbling sigh of frustration. Pacing away to the far wall and slumping down on the floor, he’s still got a view of the door and observation windows, but does his best to look non-threatening. He needs at least one of them to come in here and try to talk to him so they can hopefully figure out that Steve is himself and is not actually an animal.

He can’t speak, but maybe he can do something else to make it clear he’s not just an animal. He stays laying down, but makes a growling noise until he can see he has the attention of the rest of the team. Stretching out his right forepaw, Steve starts alternately tapping and sliding it against the ground. 

_ Tap-tap-tap. Slide. Tap. Tap-tap-tap-slide. Tap. _

He repeats the pattern several times, eyes on the other Avengers. On the third repeat he sees Natasha stiffen and narrow her eyes. He lifts his head a bit to look straight at her, and starts the pattern again.

She nods once, and he hears her voice faintly through the glass. “It’s morse code. He’s spelling his name.”

“JARVIS, translate!” Tony shouts. Good, that’s what Steve wants. Faster now that the AI can keep up, Steve speeds up the tap-and-slide motions.

“Agent Romanov is correct,” JARVIS responds. “He has spelled out his full name ‘Steve Rogers’ several times, followed by, ‘What happened?’”

“Okay kids, since this is apparently Steve and not the Lion King, back in the lab,” Tony makes shooing motions with both hands. “Easier to do this without talking through the window.”

The team comes back into the med lab, though they stay near the far wall. Steve can’t blame them, since even if they know it’s Steve they won’t be sure of his behaviour just yet. 

JARVIS continues to translate for Steve. “ _ The Captain asks if everyone else is okay. _ ”

“Cuts and bruises, nothing major,” Bruce answers from his place near the door. He doesn’t quite meet Steve’s eyes. “You’re the only one who got hit with...uh, whatever this is.” He waves his hand vaguely in Steve’s direction.

“ _ What hit me? _ ”

Tony and Bruce had moved to some of the medical equipment to run scans on Steve, so Natasha steps forward. “We’re not entirely sure. What’s the last thing you remember?”

Steve thinks back, continuing the tap and slide of his paw. “ _ Rhode Island. Magic guy but guns. Got close, then nothing. _ ”

Natasha nods. “We got called out to Rhode Island, to deal with a guy showing apparent magic abilities of some kind, making threats against...well, we’re not entirely sure about that either, he was shouting a lot of nonsense.” 

Clint gives a hum of agreement. “We were doing not too bad until right near the end. Once we knocked out all his goons and had him surrounded, he pulled some kind of magic-whammy on us. Yelling about ‘unmasking the supposed superheroes.’ Running theory is that he’s one of those Registration fanatics.” He shrugs a little. “For whatever reason, the only one affected by his magical-whatever was you, Cap.”

“He was as surprised as the rest of us,” Natasha frowns. “Clearly has no idea what he’s doing, since he transformed you into a lion instead of doing whatever he was aiming for. No effect on anyone else. Next thing we saw, there was a lion laying next to your shield on the ground. The shock gave us time to take down the magic user, then we grabbed the lion--you--and came straight back to the tower.”

“We didn’t know for sure it was you,” Bruce speaks up from behind one of the holoscreens. “But it seemed likely either you were transformed, or that somehow you had switched places with a real lion. Either way, we figured we’d need the lion to get you back.”

“You’ve been unconscious for a few hours,” Bruce continues. “Vitals are good, though, as far as I can tell. We’re still running scans, trying to figure out how to fix this.”

“The magic guy is no help,” Natasha says. “Apparently all he was trying to do was reveal our identities. He insists he has no idea why you ended up a lion.”

“Which is ridiculous, really, because it’s not as though the world doesn’t know who we are,” Tony laughs, waving his hands at each of them. “I’m not hiding that I’m Iron Man. Thor  _ literally _ fell out of the sky and then came back to help us fight aliens. Bruce, I’m sorry buddy, but a lot of people know that Banner equals Hulk these days. Cap here is in the literal history books! So really, what did this guy think he’d accomplish? And then he failed anyway, so.”

If there was ever a time he wished he could speak, it’s now, Steve thinks. He might not know them very well yet, but it’s things like this--the intelligence, the quick thinking, and the consideration--that make him hopeful that this team might eventually be as much of a family to him as the Commandos used to be. If he could speak right now, he’d tell them thanks.

It would also be far easier to explain.

He tries to shift again, but still hits some kind of invisible hold that keeps him as he is, and he huffs out a growl. Morse code it is.

The next half-hour is spent between JARVIS translating for Steve’s tapping, and the others asking yes/no questions that he can at least nod or shake his head to. Eventually he’s managed to share the important parts--that he is in fact a lion shapeshifter, that he seems to be stuck and has never had that happen before, that it is probably due to whatever magic he got hit with but he doesn’t know how to undo it. All things considered, they’re taking it remarkably well--even for a bunch of enhanced people who have seen much weirder things.

“I can’t believe I didn’t know this,” Tony exclaims, spinning idly on a stool. “My dad couldn’t stop talking about you when I was a kid, I’m genuinely surprised he didn’t end up spilling the fact that Captain America is a lion.”

Steve grumbles and shakes his head. “ _ Not a secret if you go around telling people.” _

Bruce looks up from one of the screens. “So we’ve established you’re a natural shapeshifter, Steve, but not why the magic affected you but not anyone else. If we can get a message to Thor off-world, maybe he can offer some kind of solution?” Bruce scrubs his hands through his hair, disheveling the curls even more than they already are. “Aside from that, at this point I’m kind of hoping this will wear off on its own. Sorry I don’t have a better answer for you.”

Before Steve has a chance to respond, JARVIS’ voice comes through the speakers again. “ _ Pardon the interruption, Captain. I took the liberty of contacting Mister Barnes as per your instructions. He’s on his way up in the elevator and should be here momentarily. _ ”

Steve straightens so quickly his front paws almost lift off the floor.  _ Bucky? _

The elevator door slides open in the hall and Bucky bursts out of it, running straight toward the observation window. He’s clearly upset, looking around frantically. “Steve?” He catches sight of the team through the window and runs forward. “Tony, thank god. I got a call that something happened to Steve, where is he? Is he okay?”

There’s a pause while the Avengers all look at one another, then glance at Steve.

Steve who is still stuck as a lion, and Bucky doesn’t know.

_ Fuck. _

***

Bucky runs his hands through already-messy hair, eyes glued to Tony on the other side of the hallway window. The ride from Brooklyn was made in record time and when Bucky ran into the Tower JARVIS pinged his phone with directions to the medical floor. Now he’s here, and he doesn’t see Steve, and besides the fact that Bucky doesn’t think he even knew the Tower  _ had _ a medical floor, if whatever happened to Steve is bad enough that he needs to be here, Bucky is really afraid.

“Barnes?” Tony stands up from his stool and walks toward the window. “Not that I don’t love to see you, but how’d you get access to this floor? And how do you know Steve?”

Eyes scanning the room, Bucky gestures impatiently. “Met him here a couple months ago, I’m his boyfriend. Or we’re seeing each other, whatever. JARVIS called and said something happened, please tell me he’s okay.”

“He’s okay, Buckaroo, I swear. He’s just a little indisposed right now, but if you want to head up to the common room to wait--” Tony says.

Bucky cuts him off. “No way, please, I want to see him, I--” He stops when something moves across the room, stepping out from behind one of the exam tables.

It’s a lion, a big fucking lion, and Bucky freezes. No one in the room--he vaguely registers the thought that they appear to be the other enhanced people who fight with Iron Man--seems bothered by a large animal in their midst. Hell, do they even see it? Is Bucky hallucinating from stress or fear again? Has this all been some weird prank?

He realizes he’s saying this out loud, can hear himself shouting at Tony. “What the fuck? What kind of joke is this, Tony? You told me you didn’t fake a lion at the country house but now I show up here and there’s one just hanging out in your Tower? Is this even legal? This isn’t fucking funny!” Bucky’s pacing now, short quick strides away from the window and back. “Or is this all in my head and I’m losing my mind?  _ Fuck _ .”

“Barnes. Bucky!” Tony slaps his hand against the glass to get Bucky’s attention. “I can be an asshole, but not that much of an asshole. You’re not going nuts, and this isn’t a joke. I don’t know where the lion at the country house came from, and I’ll admit this is a weird fucking coincedence, but  _ this _ lion is Steve. He’s just...kind of stuck right now.”

Bucky stares blankly, because that makes  _ no _ sense. “The lion...is Steve.” He can’t help the little burst of disbelieving laughter.

“Yeah, I know it sounds unbelievable,” a guy with sandy blond hair speaks up from where he’s leaning against the wall. Bucky’s pretty sure he’s the madman running around with a bow and arrow that he’s seen on the news. “But we’re not lying to you. Steve got hit with something, suddenly he’s a lion. We’re working on a solution, though.”

The others in the room all nod, but Bucky just shakes his head. The lion pads closer to the window, looking up at him through the glass. Surprisingly docile for what should be a wild animal, and with strangely blue eyes…

None of this makes sense, and Bucky is scared and pissed off and he just wants to see Steve. “I just want to see Steve! What am I supposed to do with a goddamn lion?” He turns away from all of them and storms off down the hall. If they aren’t going to tell him where Steve is, then Bucky’s just going to search this whole floor--hell, he’ll search the whole Tower--until he finds him.

***

Steve watches Bucky turn away, and it aches. He knows it’s ridiculous, but he nevertheless feels hurt, because for some reason part of him hoped that Bucky would know him even without being aware that Steve could change his shape. That somehow, the knowledge, the  _ connection _ , would still be there and Bucky would  _ know. _

It’s unreasonable, he knows it is. But that doesn’t make him stop wishing it was true.

Steve has no idea what to do, what he  _ can _ do right now when he can’t really speak to have a proper conversation with Bucky. But he still moves toward the door intent on following Bucky and trying to...do something.  _ Apologize without words, I guess. _

Natasha steps in front of him before he reaches the door. “Wait, Steve. Let me talk to him first. Explain the situation properly. It’ll be easier for you and him to talk this out once he understands what’s going on.”

Steve growls a little. He doesn’t like it, but Natasha has a point. Chasing Bucky through the medical floor as a lion is probably not the wisest choice at the moment. He nods to her, watches her head out of the room and down the hall. 

Hopes that Bucky will understand, and forgive him.

***

Bucky doesn’t make it much farther than the end of the hall before his angry march through the medical floor peters out. He leans against the wall next to an outside window, tips his head forward until his forehead rests on the glass and he can stare at the city spread out below.

_ What the fuck? _ Why are Tony and the super-friends trying to make him think that Steve is a lion? It’s so ridiculous and makes no sense at all. What would any of them get out of trolling Bucky like this—he’s just a normal guy.

He hasn’t seen any sign of Steve elsewhere on the floor; there’s hardly anyone here aside from a couple of lab techs in one of the big spaces he ran past. He doesn’t want to leave, because even if there’s some trick being played on him, his best chance of getting information on Steve is still Tony. But the worry and confusion is paralyzing, and right this second he can’t do anything except stand here feeling scared.

He’s not sure how long he leans against the window before getting the feeling that he’s not alone anymore. 

When he turns he finds the redhead from the other room standing a few feet away. She looks serious but not unsympathetic, and is more than a little terrifying. She’s pretty, and shorter than him, but none of that matters in the face of the ready tension in her frame and the visible weapons and the all-black gear. His brain kicks back on and supplies the name  _ Black Widow _ and yeah, he doesn’t always follow the news about superheroes but he remembers hearing about her from the Battle of Manhattan.

“Widow,” Bucky says politely. He can’t quite hold her steady gaze and turns slightly aside to look down the hall. Letting out a breath, he reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Did I just yell at a room full of superheroes? Or did I imagine that, too?”

“Definitely not your imagination,” she responds, voice dry. “But I’m pretty sure you were justified. We could have handled that better.”

“Well, Tony never was one for tact. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” Bucky turns to slump back against the wall. “So you followed me, why? To explain?”

She shrugs. “Pretty much.”

“Why you?” Because it doesn’t really make sense, he’s never met her before today. He’s not sure why she would bother.

“Would you rather one of the others?” she asks, and lets her amusement show at Bucky’s growl of frustration. He can’t even say yes, because he’s still kind of mad at Tony, and arrow-guy mostly seems to just be along for the ride, and the guy with curly hair and glasses had walked away from the yelling with a mumbled  _ I’m going to run some more tests _ . So she’s got him there; he can’t honestly say he’d prefer to hear whatever he’s about to hear from any of those guys. 

Straightening his shoulders, he meets her eyes. “All right. I’m listening.” 

“The lion back there in the lab is Steve,” she starts. “Or Steve is the lion, whichever way you want to look at it. We were out on a mission to deal with a threat and Steve got hit with some kind of magic.”

“Magic,” Bucky groans. “Sure, we’ve got aliens now, why not magic.”

That comment sends a little twitch of amusement across the Widow’s face. “We’re not entirely sure why Steve was affected but the rest of us weren’t. One minute we’re looking at Steve, the next Steve’s gone and there’s a lion on the field.” She shrugs. “We didn’t know at first if the lion even was Steve, so we brought him back to the Tower just in case. Luckily, that was the right choice, and we have a lion-Steve in the lab and not an  _ actual _ lion.”

“Right…” Bucky searches for words, but honestly doesn’t know what to say to any of that. Except… “Wait, how do you know it’s Steve for real? Is it, can he talk like that? A talking lion?” 

“No, he can’t talk,” the Widow replies, and yeah she’s definitely amused now. “But Morse Code doesn’t need a voice. JARVIS has been translating. It takes a while, but it works.”

“Okay, that’s...really smart, actually.” Bucky shakes his head; it’s somehow a very Steve thing to do. 

The combination of anger and disbelief is ebbing away now that he’s getting answers. And he believes what he’s hearing; it would be hard not to, with the Widow’s serious delivery. But that mostly just leaves room for all the other worries to surge back to the forefront. “Is he okay? Like, really okay?”

“He’s not injured, and as far as Bruce and Tony can tell, he’s as healthy a lion as he is a man. He’s just stuck like this right now, and pretty pissed off about it, if I haven’t missed my guess,” she says. “And he’s not terribly concerned about the fact that he’s a lion because apparently Steve is in fact a natural shapeshifter, which judging by your reaction back there you were not aware of.”

_ A natural… _ “No, no I was not aware of that,” Bucky says in a strangled tone. He kind of wants to be mad that Steve would keep this kind of thing a secret, but Bucky’s honest enough with himself to say he probably wouldn’t have believed Steve even if he’d said it. He probably couldn’t react  _ worse _ , but he certainly doesn’t think he would’ve done much better handling this reveal under different circumstances.

“Okay, so.” Bucky starts to speak, then stops to gather his thoughts. “So, just to be sure I’ve got this straight. Steve is a for-real lion shapeshifter. He got hit by some kind of magic that made him...shift. Now he’s stuck like this until someone figures out how to undo it.”

“That’s pretty much it,” the Widow agrees.

“Okay,” Bucky says again. He can’t seem to stop saying it. “But this all happened today? None of this explains why I also saw a lion wandering around outside Stark’s country house upstate.”

She hums with narrowed eyes, thinking. “Maybe it does. When was this?”

“Like two weeks before the whole...aliens in Manhattan thing,” Bucky replies. But she doesn’t explain any further, just hums again thoughtfully. When it’s clear she’s not going to add anything to that, Bucky sighs. “So what now?”

“Now I’ll go clear the room so you can talk to Steve,” she says, and Bucky nods.

“Thanks, uh...Ms. Widow?” Even as he says it, Bucky makes a face, because that just sounds wrong. Thankfully she only laughs.

“So you’re Steve’s boyfriend?” she asks with a teasing smile.

“I’m Steve’s...something,” Bucky says sheepishly. “We haven’t quite discussed semantics yet. But yeah, hopefully boyfriend makes the list.”

“Well, Steve’s-something. You can call me Natasha,” she says as she turns to walk back down the hall. “Give me five minutes to shoo the boys away and then Steve is all yours.”

“Thanks, Natasha,” he manages to say through the shock of being on a first-name basis with the Black Widow.

When she disappears around the corner, Bucky slumps down to sit on the floor. Just for a minute, because today has been a hell of a lot, and it isn’t over yet. “What even is my life right now?” he mutters to himself.

After a few minutes, he hears Tony’s voice in the hall protesting his removal from the lab--” _ Come on, I want to watch the happy reunion! _ ”--then the sound of the elevator doors opening and closing. Then silence.

Bucky climbs back to his feet. “Time to beard the lion in his...med lab.” 

When he returns to the lab, he finds the lion--finds Steve--sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. Standing in the doorway, Bucky quietly says, “Steve?” and the lion immediately turns to look at him, and it’s the moment that convinces Bucky for real. Steve, his Steve, is also this lion and everything else is somehow going to be okay.

For a long minute they just watch each other, and Bucky realizes it’s the first time he’s really gotten a good look. 

The blue eyes catch his attention first, bright and unusual; cat’s eyes, brilliant against the pale golden fur. A huge shaggy mane a few shades darker rings Steve’s head and neck. Smooth, strong muscle and wide paws.  _ Beautiful _ .

Steve lifts his broad head and his nose twitches as he sniffs the air with a low rumbling sound that Bucky thinks might be the lion equivalent of a purr. Slowly, Bucky moves into the room, closer to Steve, until he’s near enough to crouch down a few feet away. He kind of wants to reach out and touch, to run his hands over soft-looking pelt, but that isn’t something he deserves right now. Not until they talk this out. 

The longer he’s here, seeing Steve up close all blue eyes and golden fur, feeling unafraid of being three feet from a lion simply because he knows the lion is Steve...Bucky feels something inside him slot into place.

“It was you I saw that day at the country house, wasn’t it?” Bucky says softly. “Not a hallucination or a weird coincidence. Somehow, that was you.” 

Slowly, Steve nods his head with another one of those rumbling almost-purrs.

“I kept looking for you,” Bucky confesses. He tried to deny it even to himself, but he’s past that point now. Nothing but to be honest. “I mean, I didn’t go outside again, obviously. I was so burnt out from work that I wasn’t even sure what I saw was real, but on the off chance there really was a lion, I wasn’t about to go walk around the property. But I also...never felt afraid? Never thought that I was in danger. Kept looking out the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of gold in the trees.”

He huffs a little laugh. “But then I had to come back to the city, and then there were  _ fucking aliens _ and I have never been so terrified. And then one day in my busted up lab, there was you. Shy, sweet, gorgeous Steve. We went on these wonderful dates and texted all the time, and I’ve never felt this close this quickly with anyone, ever. And I get that this is a big, crazy, impossible secret...” He hears his voice catch a little, because along with the fear and confusion of the last few hours he’s identifying that the feeling beneath all that is hurt. “But why didn’t you tell me?”

Steve doesn’t look away from Bucky, but he does hang his head and his shoulders slump a little. He can’t speak, but Bucky can read the apology being offered.

“I get it, I do,” Bucky says. “I’m not angry with you. I get not sharing this with me when we met, because saying you can change into a lion...it sounds crazy, and I don’t even know if I would have believed you. But it’s been months…”

Steve moves then, apparently unable to keep himself apart from Bucky any longer. He pads forward the remaining distance between them until he butts his head gently against the middle of Bucky’s chest. It’s enough to knock Bucky off balance and he falls out of his crouch and ends up sitting on the floor with Steve beside him gently head-butting and rubbing his face against Bucky.

Tentatively, Bucky raises his hands to stroke across Steve’s forehead and along his ears. The golden fur is as soft as it looks, and Steve continues with the grumbling purr, pressing closer.

After a few minutes Steve pulls back to sit facing Bucky, and lifts one massive paw then brings it back down to the floor. Raises and lowers it again, then slides it a few inches across the floor. Bucky’s a little confused until JARVIS’ voice interrupts. “ _ Allow me to translate. _ ”

Right, Natasha said Steve was using Morse code. Bucky does know it, but it’s been awhile and would take him much longer to parse out Steve’s words himself. “Thanks, JARVIS. I appreciate it.”

Steve dips his head in acknowledgement, as well, and starts tapping and sliding his paw much faster. “ _ I’m sorry, Bucky. Would have told you eventually, I swear.” _

“Okay,” Bucky sighs. That had been one of his worries, that Steve would have kept this hidden forever. “Can I say that I’m glad I know, even if I wish you could have told me yourself? Instead of finding out like this?”

Tap-tap.  _ “I hurt you.” _

“A little,” Bocky nods. “It hurts to think you wanted to keep this huge part of yourself separate from me, but I believe you when you say you would have told me. So you’re forgiven, Steve. It’s okay.”

_ “Still sorry.” _

Bucky reaches out to gently rub Steve’s ear. “Thank you.” He spends a moment just petting the top of Steve’s head. “No one else knew about you? Natasha said the team had no idea.”

_ “Not a secret if you go around telling people.” _ Steve pauses.  _ “But a few people knew, a long time ago.” _

“Your family?” Bucky asks.

_ “Mostly my Ma. The ability to change shape runs in her family line. No idea when it started, or what magic makes it possible. Was always taught to protect this secret, because it would be dangerous to us, and to any others who can do the same, if it became public knowledge.” _

_ “Then I joined the Army, and the world got so much of me that I needed to keep this part of myself private. Plus it sounds crazy to say out loud, and whether people believed me or not, they would look at me differently.”  _ Steve stops tapping his paw and chuffs out a heavy sigh.

_ “But I met you, and got to know you, and just as I’m starting to think it’s safe to share with you, this happens.” _

“Well it’s not exactly something you could’ve predicted,” Bucky says with a small laugh. “And it’s really okay, I understand. I wasn’t really mad, and I’m still not. Mostly I’m just relieved you’re more or less all right.”

_ “And now that you know the truth?” _ Steve’s eyes lock on Bucky’s. 

“Now I know, and it doesn’t change how I feel about you, or how I look at you,” Bucky says softly. “I see you, Steve.” He reaches out to wrap his arms around Steve’s neck and shoulders in a tight hug. 

They lean their weight against each other, and Steve rests one foreleg over Bucky’s thighs in as much of an embrace as he can manage. Bucky feels the last of his tension drain away; no more confusion or fear now that he knows Steve is okay. Now that he knows they both will be okay. He can feel the warmth of Steve’s body, the soft fur against his cheek and hands. Hears the quiet rumbling purr deep in Steve’s chest.

“I see you,” he says again, a whisper against Steve’s ear. “And we’re going to be okay.”

***

Steve presses closer, resonating with Bucky’s words.  _ I see you. We’re going to be okay _ . He luxuriates in the closeness he’s been craving since the moment they met, satisfying that longing to be in Bucky’s space and surrounded by his scent. In this perfect moment the other stuff doesn’t matter--the worries and fears, the fact that he can’t shift--and all his focus is on his awareness of Bucky.

A shiver dances over Steve’s skin, mane to tail, and he pulls back to shake his head. He feels a buzz under his fur, like energy washing over him and then away. Something has changed, like the release of a lock or the lifting of a weight he hadn’t noticed was there. 

He feels fine again--better than fine, really--and knows instinctively that whatever has been stopping him from shifting is gone. 

Steve reaches for the shift and finds it almost immediately, like he always has before. A ripple of fur and the elastic reshaping of bones, and then he’s human again, crouched on his hands and knees in front of Bucky. The relief is dizzying; he likes his lion form but it has its limitations long term.

“Bucky,” he breathes. 

Bucky’s eyes are wide with a mix of wonder at seeing the shift, and relief that Steve is all right. Then he’s smiling, bright and happy. “Hey, Steve.”

Steve can’t resist that smile. He reaches out and pulls Bucky close into a tight hug. Bucky’s arms come around him, too, and for a few minutes they simply sit together.

As good as it feels holding Bucky close, without the fur of his lion form the cool air and hard tile floor start to feel uncomfortable.

With a blush heating his cheeks, Steve also realizes that he is very naked. It’s not that he isn’t used to it--can’t shift with human clothes on, after all--but he’s not usually naked in front of his maybe-boyfriend in this particular situation. He pulls back enough that he can turn slightly to the side, feeling the blush spread down his neck. “Um, Bucky? I’m sorry, but I’m...kind of naked.”

Bucky meets his eye and smirks. “Yes, Steve. I’m aware. It’s a good look on you.” 

Steve’s blush intensifies, and he’s sure Bucky can feel the heat of it. “ _ Bucky _ .” He covers his face with one hand, but can’t help laughing though his embarrassment because he can’t deny that hearing Bucky say he likes Steve’s looks makes him real happy. “Can you pass me something to wear?” 

Bucky laughs softly, but nods. Climbing to his feet, he pulls a bundle of blue fabric off the nearby exam table.

Except in doing so, Bucky uncovers the shield from beneath what in immediate retrospect Steve should have known was his uniform.

It’s also the moment Steve realizes he has not actually explained to Bucky that he is, in fact, Captain America.

Bucky is frozen, staring at the shield where it’s lying flat on the table, the bulky uniform dangling from one hand. For a never-ending minute Bucky just looks utterly confused, as though he’s not sure what he’s looking at. Except then Steve sees his eyes go wide with realization, and Bucky turns to stare at Steve.

Scrambling to his feet, Steve yanks the sheet from the nearby gurney and quickly wraps it around his waist. Facing Bucky again, he searches for something to say. “I...can explain?”

Bucky opens and closes his mouth several times, searching for words, before he finally says, “Oh, y’know I think it’s pretty self-explanatory?” Bucky runs his hand across the surface of the shield. Traces the star in the center. “It’s...you’re Captain America.”

Bucky’s voice wavers a bit, but he doesn’t sound angry. Steve hopes it’s not just buried beneath the surprise. He tries to think of something to say, to explain, but all he can do is nod. Bucky nods back. “I’ll be honest, I knew there was a lot I didn’t know about you, but...I wasn’t expecting that.”

Steve still can’t find the right words to say. He feels like he should be apologizing, but at this point he doesn’t even know where to start.  _ By the way, I’m also a super-soldier from the 1940s, currently an Avenger, hope that’s okay? _

Actually, yeah...that’s probably what he should have said, like, a month ago.

After a minute, though, Bucky’s expression shifts away from shocked disbelief, and he starts to laugh softly, shaking his head. “Honestly, Steve, after the rest of today and the whole shapeshift-into-a-lion thing? This is barely a blip on the radar.”

It’s the acceptance in Bucky’s voice that finally lets Steve unstick his tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wasn’t deliberately hiding it, it’s just that sometimes I like...not being Cap. I could just be myself with you.” He sighs. It’s not really an excuse. “But I still should have said something sooner, when I realized you didn’t know. I’m sorry, Bucky.”

Bucky’s smile is warm as he puts down the uniform and steps away from the shield. When he’s standing close to Steve, he slides his arms around Steve’s waist and looks him straight in the eye. “What did I just tell you, Steve? I see you.” He leans up and presses a kiss to Steve’s lips. “And you are amazing.”

Steve clutches Bucky tight, relief and happiness pouring through him. He gives Bucky another kiss, and another, until they’re both breathless. After long minutes Steve slowly pulls back, resting his forehead against Bucky’s. “Bucky? I’m still naked.”

Bucky smirks at him. “I’m aware.” He reaches down to squeeze Steve’s ass--over the sheet, like a gentleman. Steve makes a soft groan that Bucky thinks sounds an awful lot like that lion’s purr from earlier, which is something he definitely intends to explore further.

“Okay,” Steve laughs, and he can feel the blush rising across his face again. “But I’d really rather not still be naked whenever the rest of the team finally decides they’re done waiting and comes back in here.”

Bucky gives him a flirty pout, but reluctantly agrees. “Fine, fine. I’m sure we can find you something better than a sheet.” They poke around the lab until uncovering some clean scrubs in a cabinet. There’s no hope of the top fitting Steve’s shoulders, but the pants work well enough aside from being too short.

And it looks like they got Steve decent just in time. “ _ Pardon the interruption, Captain Rogers, Mr. Barnes. I must inform you that Mister Stark and the rest of the Avengers are on their way back to the medical floor, _ ” JARVIS’s voice says. 

“Thanks for the heads up, JARVIS,” Steve replies. As much as he’d prefer to just be alone with Bucky right now, he supposes the rest of his team, his friends, probably want to see for themselves that he’s okay.

Bucky steps close and pulls Steve into a loose embrace. “Once this is all taken care of, and we’re free to go… Can I treat you to a coffee, Steve?”

A wide smile spreads across Steve’s face as he recognizes the same words he used to ask Bucky out that first time. “You can definitely treat me to a coffee, Bucky. Nothing would make me happier.”


End file.
